


UnderMetal

by TheShifting (Cackle)



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Don't be afraid to point out errors, Friendship, Gen, I don't know what I'm doing, No Reader Involvement Sorry It's just the POV, No Romance, POV Second Person, first fic, first of the crossovers between ut and fma haaaha, im so sorry, this shit was originally posted in December so harhar
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-06-07 22:40:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6828097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cackle/pseuds/TheShifting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The small rounded face of a young child stares back at you, their face the picture of poker-face perfection. The words 'LOST CHILD' is printed above their image, along with a oddly vague description beneath the picture. It only really mentions the child's age and name. </p><p>You can't help but think whoever made this flyer isn't searching too hard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Thing Happens

**Author's Note:**

> Hello.
> 
> This looked alot longer on my phone hhuehahahh... uhm. . .
> 
> First-ish Fic please show some mercy but advice is desperately wanted!
> 
> EDIT(4/21/16): Ah I'd like to point out I won't be specifying whose POV it is at anytime, uh sorry? But you guys are pretty smart so I trust you can figure it out through context
> 
> ///EDIT(5/12/16) This is orignially posted on FF, once I figure out this site I'll post more of the chapters. Uh they're longer than this one.

The locals said a strange power thrummed beneath the crust of the mountain. A mystic power pulsing in large commanding waves yet containing itself under Mt. Ebott. Hushed whispers spoke solemnly of a child that had gone missing there not too long ago, _just like the others_. Some even claimed that if you knelt close enough you could hear the muffled happenings of creatures below.

You, however aren't here for the superstitious ramblings of the locals.

If one could call the jittery, hesitant words from your current victi- erm _willing informant_ , ramblings..

You narrow your eyes when they mention magic, of all things, and they flush and look away their words rushing out in a nervous torrent much more befitting of the word rambling than their previous whispers. You aren't having any of it, you've had enough of these people wasting your time. So you get up, knocking your chair back with a little more force than necessary, making it scrape against the library's floors harshly and earn a jump from the mess of a person before you.

With a scoff you turn on your heel and march past various dusty bookshelves towards the exit of the building. The distinct clanking of armor leads you to believe your brother has paused to try and comfort the annoying local.

That's just how he is, you suppose, your younger brother being so softhearted and kind to even the most unhelpful of strangers. Though that kindness of his wasn't getting them any closer to the stone. You knew you couldn't just prance around topics when your little brother was trapped in a suit of armor _unfeelingsonumbanditsallyourfault_. You had to get straight to the point so you could look into other leads sooner, and you couldn't do that by hugging everyone you met. Al seems to think he can, you know that's not possible but you'd never tell him that, you don't want him to change and maybe that's selfish of yo-

"Brother!"

A cold hand grips your arm, saving your face from the unpleasant fate of being slammed into the glass door of the library. You frown slightly, already able to imagine what that would have felt like. No one is happy with this.

"Thanks Al." You chuckle, rubbing the back of your neck with an embarrassed smile as you hear your brother give a soft resigned sigh in return.

"You've got to be more careful, Brother.." His young voice echoes out from the hollow armor and you find yourself frowning again.

This was the last lead you had currently... After this it was back to Central, back to waiting, back to searching, back to knowing your little brother is stuck like this. So far this lead was getting you both nowhere but you couldn't bring yourself to go back to that just yet.

You screw your eyes shut tightly, trying to will away the worried hum you get from your brother. There had to be something real within all these stories. Something relating to the stone. Something you could use to just keep you two _away from Central just a bit longer!_

You open your eyes.

Blink.

Blink.

The small rounded face of a young child stares back at you, their face the picture of poker-face perfection. The words 'LOST CHILD' is printed above their image, along with a oddly vague description beneath the picture. It only really mentions the child's age and name. You can't help but think whoever made this flyer isn't searching too hard.

Behind you, Alphonse leans over you to read the flyer.

"Oh.." He makes a sad little sound and you realize the child hasn't been missing for long.

"Hey Al, I know this isn't our usual thing but..." You're already reaching out, tearing the flyer from the door. "Wanna go find this brat?"

It's not as easy as you thought it would be. None of the locals seem to want to talk about the child and the fact that you can't find any family members is utterly ridiculous. Not that _you_ of all people should be getting mad at some kid for lack of family members but _still_ someone had to have made that flyer.

You wonder if the child is an orphan but the looks you get from the locals when you show them their picture has you thinking there's something else to it...

They almost look...shameful.

You ask around for a few more days but somehow you end up back in the library...with _that_ person. They're still all jittery and sweaty but you've run out of options, it seems they're the only one whose really willing to talk to you about the kid. Wringing their hands and biting their lip, at first they are no better from the last you saw them but they're looking you straight in the eye now, their gaze focused. Watching this nervous wreck of a person gain a bit of backbone...fills you with determination.

They start telling you about the mountain again.


	2. Here We Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonjour.
> 
> This...this also looked a lot longer on my phone.. anybody know a good word count I should set for each chapter?
> 
> Ah, thanks for reviewing! I hope I don't disappoint any of ya ehh..heh..
> 
> ((Ao3 05/12/16 EDIT: Uhm, I got impatient so here is the next chapter))

"This is it." You declare breathlessly, striking a triumphant pose to earn a small laugh from your brother, who is obviously in better shape than your huffing and puffing form. Perhaps you shouldn't have tried to sprint up a mountain... The trek up Mt. Ebott had taken more time than you assumed it would. The sun was already dipping below the tree line leaving the air chilled in its absence.

Your brother pauses beside you to pluck a large leaf from your hair and fan it futilely at your sweaty body.

Despite your position high up on the mountain it was getting harder to spot the town you had came from. It was almost as if the forest had swallowed up the little town. That would probably be problematic. You stop in your attempts to see the town and divert your attention back towards your destination, but only after you successfully bat the leaf from your brother's hand.

A cave looms before you, it was as the nervous local described, oddly ominous and...surreal?

You step into the cave, ignoring the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. The ground was littered with stones and old reaching roots. It seems one could easily trip here, you tread carefully. You hadn't taken but about five steps before you encounter a bit of a problem.

A gaping wound in the surface of the earth stretches out before you.

You lean over it slightly, trying to take a peek at the bottom. Yet it's pitch black after a few meters. You decide to blame that on the sinking sun rather than the unfamiliar presence that sends shivers crawling up your back.

It reminds you of Alchemy.

But it's not.

The pit in your stomach suddenly felt as if it had grown thorns.

"Do you think... they went down there?" Dimly you recognize the fact your brother is speaking but your golden gaze is straining to rip itself away from that darkness while your legs seem to know exactly what they want to do. You attempt to back away. A small yelp sounds as your boot catches on a gnarled root and you're sent tumbling backwards.

"Brother!"

A pair of gauntlets hold you steady by your shoulders. You give a stunned wheeze in response, feeling as if all the air in your lungs had escaped you at once. Your eyes brush over that darkness again. Well...that could have been bad.

"You really have to start watching where you're going!" Alphonse frets over you, his gauntlet's fingers digging into your shoulders slightly as he pulls you a tad bit forcefully away from the edge of the hole.

"Sorry Al!" You laugh awkwardly in an attempt to calm him, sounding a lot less shaken than you currently feel. It seems to work, his grip lessens and he lets out a small laugh of his own.

A silence falls over you both, lingering for a bit too long and threatening to become uncomfortable.

You wonder why you're here.

You doubt a nine year old could survive a fall like that.

"Well, I guess we better get down there huh?" But maybe you were just a bit too determined. You couldn't give up so easily.

"Really?" Alphonse's surprise is nearly tangible and you can't help but feel a bit hurt over the fact he'd think you weren't willing to help a kid who...was most likely dead..

"Yeah, come on we're wasting daylight." You confirm with a glance over your shoulder at your brother, ignoring his exclamation of 'What daylight!?' you stroll back toward the hole.

You clap your hands, and begin to form a spiraling staircase upon the walls of the hole as you venture down, your brother trailing carefully behind you. You couldn't actually tell just how deep the pit was, and you think perhaps you should have tried throwing a rock in before entering it yourself. It's a bit too late for that, you decide it's better to keep moving. The darkness seems to consume the space around you, it doesn't take long till the only light you have is provided by the alchemical lighting accompanying the steps being formed before you. It's slow going, however you rather not rush in while being unable to see what you were about to encounter. You start to feel uneasy again but the _clank clank clank_ of your brother behind you reassures you that you aren't alone.

You don't even notice anything wrong until that unfamiliar presence rolls up and hits you in an overwhelming wave, panic seizing you in its serrated grip.

The staircase crumbles.

* * *

You open your eyes.

Sunlight casts a soft glow upon the bed of golden flowers you find yourself in. Groggily your mind tries to sluggishly work out what sort of reasoning you had for sleeping in somebody's flower bed. You lay there for a few more moments, enjoying the soft bliss of dozing in the sunlight. Then your body tenses, your hands clench, and you involuntarily tear some poor flowers from the ground. You remember the previous day quite clearly and you curse yourself for not immediately checking on your brother. Where is he?! You scramble to get up, destroying more of the flowers in your haste.

"Calm down, Brother you're making a mess!"

You feel fine despite falling down an ominous pit, but now you think you've just given yourself whiplash with how quickly you spun to locate Alphonse.

He's sitting on his knees, gauntlets folded neatly in his metal lap, just beyond the flowers, probably so that he wouldn't crush any of them. You scan his armor, searching for any signs of dented or contorted metal. He appears to be unharmed from the fall. You breathe a sigh of relief, but with how quickly your heart rate had sped up it's more like a shaky puff rather than a proper sigh. Feeling strangely bad for messing up the flowers you rise on mismatched feet and exit the flower patch carefully.

You end up circling it as you try to assess the situation.

The distance between you and the opening of the pit is hard to estimate but it doesn't seem possible to climb up anyways. The small cavern you had fallen into prevented any real access back up, the walls of the hole you had dropped from were cut off forming the jagged ceiling of roots and crumbling earth held up by aged columns high above you. Of course you could just transmute the earth beneath you to get out but you remember why you had fallen in the first place, you decide you rather not attempt that right now. Looking around the cavern you realize there's only really one other exit. Alphonse remains sitting by the flower patch, waiting patiently for you to gather your bearings. He had probably been waiting hours for you to wake up, the thought makes you feel a tad guilty but it wasn't as if he didn't do that often.

"Let's get going, Al." There wasn't a point to sticking around. You didn't see the broken body of the lost child so you had to assume they survived the fall the same way you did.

You look to the bed of trampled flowers. How they had actually managed to break your fall was beyond you, but if they could do that for you it was likely they could do it for a child as well.

"The brat isn't gonna find them-self for us."

The hallway you pass through is dimmer than the cavern you left behind. You pause when you encounter a large purple doorway, you know you shouldn't be all that surprised to see a man-made structure, there were columns in the cavern you just left, but you still were anyway. A nudge from behind tells you your brother isn't all that enthused to spend his time staring at a doorway, so you get moving again into another room that lacks more light than the hallway. It seems to be empty besides a lone plant in the middle of the room. There doesn't seem to be anything worth lingering in the room for so you look to the next doorway and begin walking through the room. You're stopped in your tracks rather quickly by something...unexpected.

"Don't you have anythi-" A overly chipper voice sounds out and cuts it's first sentence off abruptly. "Golly! I don't think I've _ever_ seen either of you before!"


	3. It's Just So

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Holidays!
> 
> Sorry for the wait, if you happened to be waiting. Ah..I recently downloaded OFF, so ya know..I'm blaming that for the delay.
> 
> Anywho, uh...here's the next chapter!
> 
> ((Ao3 EDIT: Hoo boy, story doesn't seem to be doing to well on this site. Ah well, beggars can't be choosers huh? Five more chapters till y'all are caught up with the original on FF))

 

* * *

Something was wrong.

It weighed heavily in your non-existent gut, leaving you uncomfortably fidgety as you thrummed your fingers against the wood of your station. You weren't exactly sure why you were so agitated. Nothing had even happened yet. Once, perhaps, you would have thought that to be a problem, but you had come to terms with the idea that sometimes it just took a bit for that door to open. It wasn't as if you could do anything about that, not that there would really be a point to it. In the end you could never stop whatever decided to shuffle out from the ruins, so why get dusted early? ...Well, honestly sometimes that felt like the better option.

Your hands shake slightly at the thought, it didn't really matter though.

You find yourself slipping off your mittens and ridding yourself of them along with the whoopee cushions inside them. You hesitate, if only for a moment but make no move to retrieve your possessions from the snow. What difference would it make anyways? Slowly you trudge away from your station, watching as your shoes disturb the white blanket of snow before you. It's cold out, as always, but you don't actually have a need to stay warm, so it doesn't bother you.

And yet still you shiver.

* * *

You accept the fact that perhaps a patch of flowers _didn't_ do that great of a job cushioning your fall. It seems you were right to doubt their capabilities. Well, if anything you must have bashed your head pretty hard to end up with...this?

"Howdy! I'm Flowey, Flowey the Flower!" It seemed your concussed mind wasn't very creative with names, you scowl in response massaging your temples with a pair of gloved hands.

"You two must be new to the underground!" The words sounded gleefully scripted, and you had to wonder how a flower could manage that tone of voice.

"Uhm..." Alphonse was looking as put off as a suit of armor could. "Wha-"

"You both must be _so_ confused!" The flower cuts off your brother with a sickly sweet smile that's bordering on a sneer. Something about the interaction between them sets off red flags in your head. You squint, furrowing your brow in confusion. It shouldn't be possible for Al to be interrupted by your hallucination. So how did...?

You open your mouth to speak.

Nothing happens.

It takes a moment but you realize you're standing there numbly in your confusion, feeling strangely befuddled, unable to act in such a situation that... That..this... shouldn't be happening, flowers can't talk.

"Someone ought to teach you fellas how things work around here!" You didn't have much time to ponder what exactly the flower meant by that before you felt an odd tugging sensation from somewhere deep inside you, and the flower was speaking again. "I guess little old me will have to do. Ready? Here we go!"

A golden light blossoms forth into existence from your chest, settling in front of you as a odd caricature of a small heart. Surprised, you take a step back from it but it follows you, bobbing softly from the action.

"See that heart? That is your SOUL the ver-..." There's a short pause in the flower's speech in which you realize it's smile has faltered, it was staring at your brother it's expression contorted into looking perplexed. It recovers quickly enough, giving off a peculiar giggle. "..the very culmination of your being."

It's hard to tear your gaze from the floating heart but you're suddenly feeling oddly chilled, despite the warm light emanating from what the flower has described as your soul. You turn to your brother, looking for something that isn't there.

He doesn't look back at you, too preoccupied staring at his own armor.

You understand why quickly enough.

Unlike you he doesn't appear to have any sort of dimly glowing heart hovering about him. There's nothing there, and if this is suppose to represent his soul then why didn't he have one too? It wasn't as if he didn't have a soul, you _knew_ that he did. This wasn't right, how'd you even know if this...this weird little heart, was really your soul anyways? Since when did you trust talking flowers? You didn't. But the idea of something being wrong with your brother's soul was alarming. You didn't know how to fix something like this. Souls weren't meant to be messed with and Al's already had been, _by you_.

Your distress suddenly ebbs at the sight of a soft serene grey light emitting from the cracks of Alphonse's armor. Wait was tha-

The flower clears it's throat, (though you're not sure you could be describing that as its throat), disrupting your thoughts before they can even complete themselves. It's smile is starting to look rather strained and annoyed. It, however, keeps up its cheerful little demeanor with another laugh, though this one is more forced than the last.

"It's rude to ignore someone when they're talking to you." The flower cocks it head(?) it's smile widening to the point of it looking painful. You don't like the look it's giving you, even so, you opt to stay silent gritting your teeth. You don't understand whats going on and you're not dumb enough to insult the only thing that could possibly explain it to you...yet.

"Ah...Sorry?" The apology your brother offers up is confused and small but the flower seems satisfied with the response.

" _Gooood_." The reply is crooned in a mocking manner and your doubts about how helpful flowers are grows, making you huff through your teeth in annoyance. "As I was saying; your SOUL starts off weak, but can grow strong if you gain a lot of LV."

You definitely don't know what that could possibly mean but there's no point in asking, the flower was already explaining it.

"What's LV stand for? Why, LOVE of course!" Reflectively a frown forms on your face as the flower bounces on its stem cheekily. "You want some LOVE, don't you?"

"Uh, no th-"

"Don't worry, I'll share some with you two!" The flower doesn't seem to be tolerating anymore interruptions, despite the fact that it had technically just asked a question. As the flower began speaking once more, white seed-like pellets began floating about behind it, spinning lazily at first then picking up speed. "Down here, LOVE is shared through...little white...'friendliness pellets.' "

What.

"Are you two ready?"

* * *

Perhaps you couldn't say you hadn't been expecting this to happen, but it would be nice to be able to. Meeting someone who didn't want to kill you and/or your brother would be a pleasant change of pace. Well, at least Ed seemed to have gotten over his disorientation of the situation rather well, or...maybe he was just ignoring it?

As of now, however, your older brother was outright screeching at Flowey, tossing himself about the clearing in an attempt to rip the plant from the ground. He looked ridiculous, though, Flowey wasn't acting any better than Ed.

"It's still _my_ turn you stupid midget!"

"Shut up!"

Ed seemed too out of breath to give one of his usual rants in response and you were thankful for it, if you had a body you were sure you'd have a major headache by now. Nevertheless you sound a sigh as several 'friendliness pellets' clink against your armor, they don't do any sizable damage but that didn't mean they weren't annoying you. You'd deal with whatever marks they left behind later, your brother was really just wasting time here. Ed didn't seem to be in any real danger, nor did Flowey, neither of them were actually managing to hurt each-other beyond few scratches and lost pedals. They both were growing increasingly frustrated, acting like children hissing out insults and growling whenever their attacks were dodged. The whole clearing was marred with bullet holes and signs of alchemical reactions (Ed had tried crushing Flowey several times to no avail). You weren't participating in the fight, the whole situation seemed, so...silly, especially when you had some serious business down here. A child was missing, and Ed was taking the time to try to beat up a flower...failing at it too...

"I'll...be up ahead." With the fight going no where fast you decide to keep looking for the child, listening idly to the bickering of the two opponents as you leave the area. The next room you enter is much larger than the last, brighter too, how though, you're not quite sure as you can't find any source for the light. Twin staircases lead up to a door that's framed by ivy. A sign of some sort makes it's home above the door, you attempt to read it but quickly discover you can't. Its too worn, faded from the passage of time, you suppose it doesn't matter. The child isn't here, unsurprisingly, so there's nothing here for you. You make your way up the left staircase and abruptly halt in your steps when you spot something just out of clear view.

For a moment you swear you could see a bright flash of a flickering light between the bases of the twin staircases but when you look back towards it there's nothing there but a pile of dry leaves.


	4. What Is Done

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi. 
> 
> Here's the next chapter, posted early 'cause some nice users on here made me happy.

Your feet don't quite reach the floor.

They're left swinging uselessly above the wooden slats, small brown boots slowly losing their grip upon your feet. You could've sat in the chair that was just your size, but it wasn't really _yours_ , neither was the seat you were in now, however it's owner certainly didn't mind sharing with you. The left boot hits the floor with a soft thud, the right following soon after, slipping off via a idle shake of your sock covered foot. You decide to stand in the large seat, balancing with your little hands pressing against the edge of the table. It's easier to see everything that way. Though there isn't much to see here that you haven't seen plenty of times before. You think perhaps, you could never tire of the warm comfort of this house. You chew your lip, guilt creeping up on you slowly. That never stopped you from leaving each time, so maybe you didn't like it as much as you thought you did..? Well you had made a effort to stay a few times, that never worked out, it didn't really _progress_ into anything.

You're pulled from your thoughts by the gentle _clink_ of a plate being deposited beside your cup with a warm smile and a large fuzzy hand mussing your hair.  
Ah...snail pie tonight.

* * *

"..brave ones, foolish ones, both walk not the middle road..?" You look from the inscription to the large silver buttons situated on the other side of the room. Four of them were depressed into the ground, though two of the buttons remained untouched.  
A test of some sort? Why was it here?  
It seemed to be finished already. You bet the doorway would have been blocked previously. Whoever solved it must have left, the open doorway was the only way to advance farther. There wasn't really anything in the room that could help indicate how long it had been solved though...  
Had the little kid figured this out them-self? Or perhaps it had been left finished by someone else...?

You wander curiously towards the buttons, the puzzle was simple enough. You were suppose to press the buttons as the sign had told you; none in the middle of the road. The oddly colored path was representing that here. There was also a yellow switch located on the wall beside the doorway. It too seemed to be activated already, stuck in it's lower position. Not wanting to accidentally break it (or reactivate the puzzle) by trying to force it back up you leave the switch be.

Abandoning the test you clank into the next room, turning your helmet here and there as you peer around the space carefully. You had already encountered an aggressive buttercup, who knows what else could be around here... Maybe you should wait for Ed.

This place was rather linear so far, you decide you'll stop and wait for your older brother once the rooms begin branching off. Besides, you weren't really sure how long Ed could fight a flower, so you might as well make a bit more progress looking for the child before you wait for him to catch up.

The room is much larger than the last, it shares the same odd color scheme as the other rooms you had already seen, as well as a yellow switch you had noticed when you walked in. Another grey plate was situated on the wall across you, a small wooden sign taking up residence a few paces in front of it. You tread towards it with the intention of reading it when you're stopped in your tracks by the sound of rushing water. Confused, you turn your line of sight to fully take in the rest of the room.

Three more switches are placed upon the purple walls, and from what you could see two of them were activated, (though to be honest you really weren't sure which position of the switch actually meant it was triggered). The bright yellow switches were separated by a pair of small rivers cut into the room in such a way that didn't look entirely natural. You doubt much of this place is natural but you don't have the time to waste dwelling on it. There's an rail-less wooden bridge for each of the two rivers, they were small and almost unnecessary for such small bodies of water. You aren't sure you should try walking on them and risk falling in the water, you don't know how deep it was, despite how clean the water looked it wasn't clear enough to see the bottom. For a moment you think about making a bridge of your own but you chose to simply jump over the short gap. You feel slightly silly for not doing that immediately.  
Just as you're about to jump the second river something scrawled in yellow beside the second switch catches your attention. You take a look back but you can't quite see if there's writing beside the first switch also, though a glance to your right shows the next switch has writing next to it as well. You know you shouldn't be spending all your time inspecting every little thing you see but you nevertheless take a few steps towards the writing, it seems to be some sort of note.

"This switch too...Toriel...?"

Did this...mean there was someone else down here? Had they taken the child? But why leave instructions for someone you had with you...perhaps they had been leading the child deeper into the caverns? Why? This was no place for a child, what would they want with them?  
The neat writing was suddenly seeming much more menacing than it should, your thoughts becoming jumbled up and distraught, fearing for the lost child you had yet to find.

You step back.

"Uuuh.." You sound a nervous little mumble and glance fretfully towards the door you had entered through. You knew you were jumping to conclusions but _still_ you wished Ed would hurry up. You didn't really like this situation, nor were you about to wait around for something happen to the child. A pair of gauntlets clench their fingers into fists, holding themselves by your sides stiffly and you still for a moment, calming your mind before you square yourself. You're ready to move on and you do so quickly.

The chamber you enter next is much more compact than the last. You don't halt to look around, passing by a abnormally shaped mannequin without so much as a quick glance. Like the other rooms the doorway is clear of any obstruction, you don't hesitate to exit through it with brisk steps.

You're greeted with the sight of what one might call absolutely nothing. The empty little room didn't offer up anything as the others did, though you did notice the path had twisted itself into a different shape in the middle of the floor. You make note of the shape but it's harshly shoved to the back of your mind once you trek through a small hall connecting the empty room to a not so empty room. Why this...? The other chambers had nothing like this, you had been able to simply just stroll through them, the escalation to..this..was rather extreme. Sure the tests had been solved in the other rooms but you were sure none of them had included so many...spikes.  
An unwanted thought creeps forth.  
 _If this puzzle wasn't solved did that mean the child had gotten ki-_  
You force yourself to push the thought away, unfinished but still daunting in its implications. You had to think rationally about this.  
You'd know by now if the child hadn't made it through the spikes, there would be plenty of evidence to point towards that. However, there was no blood upon the rigid prongs, no scraps of clothing, nothing. There's a way through this, you must have missed something. _Or maybe the child tried to cross through the river and drowned_.

Since when were your thoughts so morbid...? You were reacting unreasonably to all this, why were you so scared for a child you never met? Yes, they were a innocent child but why did you feel so strongly about this? Assuming the worst immediately? Your arms cross each-other as you bring them up around yourself in a hollow mimic of a hug, the stiff metal you called home diluting the gesture of any real comfort it could provide.

You turn back.  
Heading through the short hallway you stop by the sign on the wall to read it, having ignored it before. It's contents have your arms sagging from their impromptu hug with relief. You could have saved yourself some from some stress had you chosen to read it before.

'The Western room is the Eastern room's blueprint.'

You don't read it aloud, opting to give a tense little giggle instead. Surely the child could read, none of the puzzles had been hard anyways, they'd be _fine_ , and soon they'd be home. You just had to find them before anything else did.  
A turn of your helmet has your gaze fixed back on the path on the west room's floor. The pattern isn't difficult to remember, you burn alchemy circles into your memory daily, so something like this should be effortless for you. You step forth upon the spiked bridge, its prongs retreating beneath you as you follow the pattern with ease. It was a simple pattern mostly just consisting of moving up or down after several paces. Easy, a child should be able to do that...

You silently push your doubts away, leaving them to stay behind with the spiked bridge. You're eager to get out of the room so you quickly move through the open doorway.

An exasperated groan sounds from you once you see the area you found yourself in.  
The doorway had lead to a unnecessarily long hall, devoid of anything notable it's only inhabitants were the reaching ivy that climbed the corridor's walls in long tendrils breaking the usual color scheme with its smattering of bright green leaves. The path you had been using refused to say in a straight line, edging itself up and down in an odd pattern for no foreseeable reason. Much farther down the hall a lone white pillar stands tall, pressed close to the wall, casting a deep shadow behind itself. The next doorway seems to be currently the furthest thing from you. You take a step into the room, one of many more steps you'd have to take before you could proceed out.

You hope for no more spikes.

* * *

_Thud!_

"Oof!"  
Another miss, this time you had lunged too far and landed flat on your face before you could catch yourself. You sputter, wiping at your face with your left hand as you try to clear your vision of the dirt you landed in. Following you as always, the little golden heart flutters piteously, floating in front of your face unhelpfully. You glare at it. ...Nothing happens. You were getting sloppy... Well, sloppier, you hadn't exactly been doing that good of a job fighting the flower in the first place. Not that he was doing a good job of fighting you either. You were both mad and it showed through your messy combat.

"Hehe, you like eating dirt, midget?"  
Well he certainly enjoyed the sight of you face-planting. Time to fix that.

Instead of getting up from where you fell you shift into a crouch and clap your palms together, pressing them to the ground with a wicked grin. Alchemical lighting crackles as earth rolls and churns like liquid. Then it turns and forms a looming wave of soil earning a choked exclamation of surprise from the plant as it pulls at it's roots and crashes down onto it.

"No, do you?" You laugh aloud at your opponent's misfortune, bringing yourself back to your feet.

You don't stay there for long. Something wraps itself around your flesh leg like a thorny serpent, gripping tight. Suddenly you crash back onto the ground as your leg is yanked out from under you and you're dragged across the dirt roughly by your bound limb. You struggle instinctively, clawing at the earth with your fingers in a futile attempt to prevent yourself from being pulled any further. A sharp scrapping sound assaults your ears as your automail is struck against a rock. The blade formed on your arm momentarily catches on a gnarled root, and the force on your leg nearly rips the metal arm from its port. Squirming, you manage to get into a position where you can swipe downwards with your transmuted blade. Something makes a snapping noise and the harsh tension on your leg disappears in a instant.  
You scramble to get up, stumbling over the severed object still partially clinging to your leg. You kick it away from you and ready yourself to dodge another attack from below.

You're left standing there awkwardly for a few long seconds before you notice the floating heart was fading away. You wonder if that's a bad thing but nothing horrible happens once it completely vanishes so you suppose you don't have to worry about it for now. You remain where you are.

It takes longer than you like but you realize the flower had left.  
With an annoyed huff you look to the object that had caused your second meeting with the ground. Unsurprisingly it's a thick vine, covered with large sharp thorns. You nudge it with your boot and it begins oozing from the area where you had severed it.

"...ew."

Apparently even plants don't like being asked if they eat dirt.

You count this as a win and march out the doorway triumphantly as you can whilst covered in dirt and bruises.

* * *

You make your way through the tediously long corridor, the only change in scenery being the different strings of ivy on the walls. It wasn't very entertaining to say the least, but if you stared anywhere else in the room you might be confused as to if you were actually making any progress towards the door which always seemed to be too far away. Several minutes pass before you reach the pillar at the end of the passageway, when you look back the hall suddenly seems much shorter.. You think that's rather odd but you weren't about to go back to test if it was actually shorter. Being unable to get tired physically the walk had been more so a mental drain, boring you half to death without your brother to talk to.

You rotate your helmet to regard the next door, and begin moving towards it, into whats hopefully not another hall. Before you manage to step through the door you spot something particularly...odd. A white mass sits within the next chamber... it's breathing. A strange contortion of a frog, much too large to be natural, with a pair of beady blinking eyes below it's stomach where they should certainly _not_ be.

The chimera shudders out a warbling _ribbit_ and adjusts it's mutated form to stare blankly at you. You stare back.


	5. It's Gone Downhill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo.
> 
> I've decided I'm not gonna copy the A/Ns from the FF version of this story unless they're important.  
> Uhm, happy late birthday! Me...?

"Al?"

You wait for a response but receive none.  
You'd been walking for awhile through this...place's halls and so far it was pretty boring, very repetitive, very purple. You no longer liked the color purple. How far had Al gone anyways? You were admittedly kinda sour over the fact he hadn't waited for you, you had wanted to tell him about how you shoved that flower back where it came from, but after all the boring walking alone the rush was wearing off, you were left scrapped up and bruised from your fight.

Maybe your brother wasn't all that far ahead? You could probably catch up pretty quickly if you just ran through everything. It wasn't as if anything here was all that dangerous after all, right? Right. Yeah, good idea. You give a little grin to no one in particular.  
So you set off at the slightly unreasonable pace of full speed ahead.

_Splash!_

"wAH!?" You find yourself dunked straight into a mass of chilly water, and for a moment you panic, the knowledge of your automail being rather counter productive to floating being the only thing that comes to mind. You flail haphazardly trying to keep your head above the surface before you even realize you aren't sinking. Scrambling to get your feet beneath you, as they should be, you stand with less resistance from the water than you expected, and nearly fall back into the liquid. Oh..it's about knee high...  
Whatever..? No one saw so there was no reason to feel embarrassed about it, nevertheless you give the water a kick for good measure before slinking out of the room and into the next.

* * *

 

 

You're still.

Your gaze focuses solely on the living mass of croaking white flesh.

It shouldn't exist.  
And yet it does.

The chimera gives another confused little noise, this one sounding suspiciously like a cat. Its dull expression shifting into something puzzled with a tilt of its head. An involuntary tremor racks itself though you, your metal body remaining unresponsive to the instinctive shiver you can't actually feel. The creature seems to stare for an eternity, the chamber silent beyond the abnormal sounds it emits.  
Then nothing.

The chimera turns and resumes its previous action of gazing straight ahead, bobbing in place as if you hadn't entered the room. A long pause follows, in it you remain fixated upon the creature unsure of what you could do about it or if you should simply continue on. You take a hesitant step forward, observing the chimera's reaction, or uh, _lack_ of reaction. It continues staring ahead not even bothering with a glance at you, staying put like a lazy sentry. You wonder if it's really all that capable of much movement, its body was certainly...something. You decide to focus on something else and give your surroundings a look over for something to distract your eyes, where as your feet edge you around the chimera carefully.  
It's not a big change from the other chambers, but you note the seemly random piles of dry autumn leaves. A total of three neat piles in the shapes of two rectangles and a single square mark the room in no recognizable sort of pattern. The closest pile appears to have been walked through several times, though it looked as if whoever went crunching through the leaves at least attempted to keep the pile somewhat straightened. It really begged the question as to who went around gathering piles of leaves when you had yet to see a single tree since you got here. In fact, the only plants you've seen so far were the vines, (some of which you could see now, trailing about on either side of a dark doorway near the frog chimera) and Flowey. At the reminder of Flowey you cast a wary glance towards the chimera.

"Ribbit, ribbit." It doesn't seem to appreciate your staring and gives you another blank look till you look away.

That's fair.  
If the chimera wasn't hostile in the first place, you shouldn't actually try to aggravate it by staring at it constantly. You never really liked it when people stared at you either. You follow the chimera's stare towards the opposite end of the room, idly wondering what it could possibly be looking at.

"Ah.." It's just another wall and despite already knowing the room was rather bare you can't help but be disappointed.

Well, either way you can see that this chamber _is_ actually different from the other rooms, sorta... So far it looks to be as if this were the only area with two doors-ways out instead of just one. You decide to check out the closer door-way first and make your way through the ivy framed door.

Uh.  
So much for having two exits. This room was, rather odd compared to the others, to say the least. Is that...candy?  
You advance closer to the pedestal in possession of the bowl holding pastel colored wrappings, stepping over the thin border of leaves someone had made around the pedestal. After coming closer to the bowl you confirmed the thought of it being candy, a note even telling you to take one. You didn't, for obvious reasons.  
Though, the point of the room still escaped you.  
You look to the bodies of water on the left and right of the small room then you regard the thick mass of green vines on the wall. None of it really seemed to serve a purpose of any kind... Maybe your brother would want some candy..? Ah, it probably wasn't that good of a idea to eat some random candy you happened to find deep in a crumbling network of chambers and violent plants. Ed would probably be fine with eating it but you weren't about to let him eat something that could harm him.

Though...now that you've thought of it, your brother hasn't eaten in awhile, since the day before actually. Sure he'd be fine for a bit longer but...neither of you had packed food. Where were you suppose to find food for him down here? How would the lost child find food either..? The only living thing down here seemed to be the creature outside the room you were currently in, maybe there was more of them..?  
You cringe at the thought of someone eating the frog chimera.  
How long had you been down here anyways? It was rather hard to estimate how much time had passed with no changes in the position of the shadows or really anything else changing for that matter. You think you could stand in place for hours and not a single thing down here would be any different. It wasn't as if the shadows would change position while you were underground anyways, considering the fact the underground of course lacked sun light.

You morn the loss of your time telling skills as you exit out of the smaller room, back into the larger one and through the next door, the chimera giving off another croak as you leave its chamber. You enter another small room, not as small as the room with the candy but still rather small. The little room managed to have the most suspicious looking floor it could have, a large section of the floor was the wrong shade, darker as if the floor was sagging in on itself and textured with odd marks. It looked as if the floor would give out the moment you stepped foot onto it. There's a pair of vent like openings on the walls on either side of the untrustworthy patch of flooring. You peer into the one on your side but you can't see beyond the dark shadows within.  
It didn't matter all that much, you didn't need to step on the odd patch of the floor to get across. Really you could probably just jump it...  
It takes a moment but you succeed in drawing out a transmutation circle on the floor with a crumbling piece of chalk you had stashed away in one of your boots.

...

You should get a bag or something, carrying stuff around in your armor is kinda weird.

Oh well, you press your gauntlets against the edges of the circle, activating it. Before you, the ground crackles with alchemical light, the floor changing and extending itself to follow your instructions to form a small arching bridge over the sagging floor. Something within the chamber rumbles its protest and you hesitate for a moment knowing it wasn't a good idea to be shifting a lot of earth while underground. This...should be fine though.

* * *

 

 _Splash!_  
"aaAARUGH! Again?!"

You don't seem to learn apparently. Now you were cold, and your jacket got ripped on the stupid spikes. Not that you couldn't fix it easily, but still.

Sloshing about back to your feet you stand up in the nearly knee high water, clutching at your sopping wet jacket testily as you scowl at the spiked bridge. Trying to run through that hadn't been such a great idea but you hadn't got impaled when your jacket got caught and tripped you up so...Didn't get impaled. You truly are the real winner in this situation.

You didn't bother drying yourself off this time figuring if you encountered anymore water you'd probably just fall in again. You end up drying off rather well in the next room, which wasn't much of room but more so a very long corridor, you had plenty of time to dry out whilst trying to sprint to the end of the room. It took you longer than you liked and as soon as you went through the door-way you found yourself flat out on your face, having stumbled over something pretty solid that stood right outside the door-way you had come through. You give an annoyed grumble but it catches in your throat when you look up to see what exactly caused your spill onto the floor.

It was an abomination.

A horde of bleached flesh shaped like a huge frog, its body mutated and wrong. A chimera.  
But how? Chimera don't just come into being on their own, someone must have done this.

You don't have time to think on it, the chimera apparently wasn't too happy about you tripping over it either. You roll out of the way of several white bullets vaguely resembling flies, noticing how much slower they were compared to the flower's, but unlike your fight with the flower you don't attempt any banter with the contorted creature. You doubt it's capable of speech anyways, it didn't seem to be a mesh of a human and a frog... Then again Nina hadn't looked like a mesh of-  
The chimera suddenly hops towards and you react instinctively, lashing out with your left foot. Your kick catches the creature under the jaw, its head snaps back harshly and it's flung backwards from the excessive force behind your automail leg. The fight is over within a few seconds, the creature hitting the stone wall with a loud thunk. You, however, weren't prepared for it to explode in a shower of white dust.

You clamber to your feet accidentally kicking the pile of dust in your haste, coughing into your sleeve and waving a gloved hand to try and clear the air of the powder that had found its way up your nose and into your irritated lungs. Squinting about the area your eyes didn't fair any better against the dust in the air, with a huff you came to the conclusion that the chimera hadn't just fled the area...it had really turned into dust..? But..  
You bend to examine the small pile of dust but there's not much left due to you kicking it, most of it is actually on you.  
This couldn't be right, it wasn't...? How could it just...be destroyed like that? Turning into dust when it had a physical body beforehand... Why was there no corpse? This isn't how these things worked, things don't just, do that. There had to some explanation for this.  
You pat down your clothes, dust coming off the articles in large white clouds. Weird.

So...was it dead? Well, most likely, there wasn't exactly anything remaining of it anyways. It couldn't have been a real living being though no it...it didn't make any sense.

Sure you could have felt guiltier, but the whole lack of a corpse made it rather hard to come to terms with the fact that you had just cut something's life short. There wasn't any time for it to sink in, there was nothing left of it. Like it hadn't existed in the first place. You give a small shudder, exiting the room to catch up with your brother, you still had a kid to find after all.

And besides, it attacked you first, right?  
What you did was okay, Al would understand.


	6. Places To Be

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiya.
> 
> I can't FJmkdf d BELIEVE I keep writing ahead ugh and this stupidFCjkm a huge chunk of this chapter got deleted as soon as I finished im just...uggh, trying to get to this scene is taking ages I'm dying! Had to cut this off before I could get to that scene again? I gotta proof-read this again...Ah, I'm so sorry!
> 
> I'm not really happy with this chapter I'm so sorry for feeding you guys this garbage.
> 
> //AO3 EDIT: Ok so exams are over so if you've read ahead on FF I'm going to be posting chapter 9 soon!?//

A fragile string of white butterflies obscures your vision, you attempt to shoo them but they simply drift out of reach apologetically. You make no progress in getting the butterflies to leave you alone, but you do end up nearly backhanding the golden heart caricature floating around you several times. It didn't seem to like that. You consider giving the heart a whack just to see what it would do, but something tells you that wouldn't be such a good idea.

"Meow." You pause at the garbled noise, listening carefully you don't quite manage to catch the soft apologies sounding towards your right side, the not-quite feline sounds being much louder.

"...Al?" Well, it seemed your brother was the first thing that came to mind when you thought of cats.  
You turn, catching a glimpse of a strange fluttering creature before a much more familiar deformation slams into your legs. You stumble back, the butterflies struggling to avoid you as you try to regain your balance, narrowing your eyes at the creature.

"Ribbit."

"You again?"

* * *

You give in to the temptation to scratch at your head, not because you were itchy or something silly like that, it was more for expression's sake. Unsurprisingly the sound it produces is unpleasant and you're quick to move your arms back to your sides, resuming the lifeless stance one would expect of a suit of armor.

Whoever created those signs must have had an weird sense of humor. Perhaps they took joy in leaving behind nonsensical directions for strangers to stumble upon? You think that's likely.

Perhaps they took joy in leaving behind nonsensical directions for strangers to stumble upon? You think that's likely.

"...Three out of four grey rocks recommend you push them.." While the peculiar word choice was admittedly amusing it wasn't actually all that helpful in the grand scheme of things. You were looking for a child not rocks.  
Besides that, the puzzle was already solved like the others, you could leave the room now but perhaps it would be wiser to check everything first? Well, you had looked over the room when you walked in, there wasn't really much _to_ check...

You turn to the sole rock conveniently depressing a silver plate in the middle of the room.

Yup still a rock.

...Alright time to go.

You've wasted so much time in the previous rooms, it's surprising you've managed to make any progress at all. Who knew how far these rooms even went. You could be trapped here for days and worst you wouldn't notice the time passing. With that in mind and a suspicious glance downwards, you avoid the line of lowered spikes in your path via stepping over them. Maybe you should have checked those...? What. No. You're too busy making progress.

Sadly all those several yards of progress you made were brought to a sulking stop within the next room.

Marred discolored flooring stretches out before you, it seems to sag looking as if it wanted nothing more than to give up it's place and sink further beneath the surface of the floor. This was the same flooring as a smaller room you had seen before, though then you could clearly see the other side, within a few feet really. Here, in this chamber, there was no more stable flooring in sight, a wall blocks your gaze from seeking the end of the room no matter how far you lean towards the edge. You like to think you're a patient person...

"Ugh..." You drag a gauntlet down the face of your helmet. There wasn't really much of a choice for you here other than transmuting another bridge. That though, wasn't exactly a great idea, you'd have to be very careful not to shift too much material or this place could collapse for all you knew. This was reall-

Something slams into your back with all the force of a half-grown bull and you nearly topple over onto the unstable flooring out of surprise.

"Al!" The weight disappears, you're free to steady yourself back to the safety of the normal flooring but not without first grabbing at your brother's arm and giving him a short shake. White powder drifts off him like chalk.

"Brother, I'm happy to see you too but you can't just run into me like that!" You attempt to scold him, but your voice betrays your relief at seeing him in (relatively) one piece. He seems a bit scuffed up, though it wasn't as if he didn't get like that often. You figure by the way he's grinning at you he must have done something you wouldn't quite approve of. The grin wavers slightly when you reach out and being brushing away the layer of powder atop his head. How did that even get there?

Ed huffs and pushes your gauntlet away, opting to shake himself like a dog sending clouds of powder into the air, and himself into a coughing fit. You attempt to pat him on the back, but that seems to annoy him and your gauntlet is shoo'd away again by a flailing hand.

"I wouldn't have to be running if it weren't for all those stupid- " He turns his hands about himself, seemly debating on the proper word. "- _monster_ things that keep trying to kill me." His face scrunches up and his expression sours as he says this. You, however, only grow confused by this.

"The chimeras are trying to kill you..?" You hadn't had such a problem with the creatures, they seemed to be docile or at the least indifferent of you.

"Yeah!" Ed responses loudly, clearly frustrated. "And they _explode_!" He emphasizes this by slamming his hands back down onto his coat, another puff of chalky dust is sent into the air. It would appear as if it just settled back onto him each time he shook it off.

"That's..." You weren't quite sure how to respond to that, your confusion only growing deeper. You decide to provide some of your own information, it seemed like the better option over trying to process the fact that your brother was telling you these creatures exploded of all things. "They haven't been attacking me?"

Ed pauses.

"...I bet that flower sent them after me." He says this with his eyes narrowed into a hateful glare and his mouth set in a firm scowl. Very serious really, yet you never imagined you'd ever hear anyone say something like that. "Probably bitter over the fact I beat him up."

Uhm.

"Well...I guess, I mean... I can't think of any _other_ reason they'd be attacking you..?" You reluctantly agree, and even though you know you sound positively baffled Ed is already nodding along, having decided he was right before you even responded.

"Yeah...you didn't fight him so he's got no reason to send his little friends after you.." He's muttering now pacing slightly in the small space you both occupy. You feel oddly nervous watching him scheme away in his head.  
Suddenly he snaps to attention, pointing at you with a devious grin.

"Alright, Al! Here's the plan."

Uh oh.

* * *

How you actually managed to convince Al to let you crawl into his armor was beyond you, but whatever, so far so good. You both were going through the rooms much faster like this anyways, and you didn't have to walk! So.. win-win situation. Sure going through the first room like this had been rather awkward at first, Al complained the whole time and getting comfortable just wasn't something that was gonna happen. Also Al kept mentioning something about nearly causing a cave-in while going through that room, but you couldn't see through his armor so you weren't sure what he was talking about. Though the ominous rumbles should have been enough information on their own, you were content to ignore most of what was going for some shut-eye.

Of course no such thing like shut-eye could last in a place like this. After what felt like a few minutes light filters in through where Al's helmet usually was and something un-welcomed bounces off your head. You hiss in surprise and snatch up the object from where it landed.

"Did you just throw cheese at me?"

"...Maybe."

He didn't sound very apologetic about it.

" _Why?_ "

"I found it." Came the simple response which, frankly, made no sense.

"So you just decided to throw it at me?"

"I didn't _throw_ it at you!" Al defends with an almost offended tone to his voice.

"Ok, so you _dropped_ it on me."

"Well, what did you want me to do? It's not like I can just hand stuff to you!" Your little brother retorts and you end up getting jostled around as he makes what you assume is a frustrated gesture.

"I didn't ask for any cheese! Do you just shove random objec-" You're cut off when you're suddenly shaken much more harshly than before, your head smacking against Al's armor with a dull _clunk_. You open your mouth to complain but you're quickly shushed by your younger brother. You're deathly silent, fearing your brother had run into more monsters. What if they decided to attack him? You couldn't help him while you were in his armor, this didn't really seem like a good idea anymore.

"Spider Bakesale..?"

What. What was he doing? What did that even mean? You knock impatiently against his armor with your right hand, it sounds out as a loud _clang_ and Al shifts slightly in response before continuing on stepping through whatever room you were in now.

It doesn't take long before he starts muttering nonsense about switches and puzzles, but you think your work here is done for now. Al doesn't make many frequent stops besides when he suddenly says some odd riddle followed by some complaint about puzzles. You assume he must be reading those sign things. That or he's trying to annoy you into getting out of his armor, who knew.

Despite your position you doze off for awhile before being shaken awake again.

"W-whu?"

"Brother, I haven't seen any uh..." There's a short pause in his speech. "... _monsters_ in awhile, I think you can come out now." He seems uncomfortable using the word monsters but you dismiss it easily via a groggy nod. You seem to forget Al can't see you currently, though it doesn't appear to matter as he is already reaching in his armor and trying to pull you out.

"Ow! You're tugging my hair!"

"Ah sorry, Brother!"

You land in a heap, still dusty somehow, despite spending the better part of what _could've_ been an hour or two in Al's armor. Or maybe several minutes... You weren't quite sure how long it had been, sleeping could do that to you, oh well.

With a short cough you gather yourself back up into a standing position, halting in your motions to stretch out your sore body before taking that time to survey your surroundings. You and your brother appear to be in some sort of corridor, it's not very large but it branches off into another hall, forming a sort of 'T'. Bright green plants mark the corridor's path twice in a pair of thick leafy stripes on both ends of the hall. Towards the middle the light purple path arches up towards the joining hall, stunningly red leaves are arranged in a cruciform manner directing your gaze to a door-way flanked by vines.

"...I wonder what's through there?"

* * *

Guilt creeps up on you, lingering about like a heavy fog. It slows your movements as if it were forcing its weight upon your limbs, making the simple process of putting on your shoes a taxing endeavor. You manage it though, and slip quietly off the warm covers that previously shielded you from the shame embracing you now. Goose bumps crawl up on your flesh and you shiver. Hugging yourself briefly, you chide yourself for staying so long. This time it had been a few _days_. You usually didn't stay any longer than a few _hours_ at most, and that was really only if you ended up taking a nap. You weren't dumb, you knew if you made a _real_ effort to stay with her, leaving would just hurt her even more. You had already made attempts to stay. You always leave. You can't not leave, it just, didn't happen, that's not how it worked.

A shallow breath through your teeth and you're peeking through the door. The lights are still on. You don't know when she sleeps but it doesn't matter. She always finds out when you go down the stairs. That doesn't mean you don't tip toe all the way down the hall, because you do. Vainly hoping you could disappear without having to see the disappointment on her face. _You're just like the others._ But vanishing would make her worry, and that was mean. You didn't want her to worry about you, you didn't want her to think you hated her either.  
You exit her home, chancing a look at it's features as you drift around a flickering light. For someone so DETERMINED you seemed to think many things were pointless. Yet you did them anyways, even though those pointless things could be bluntly summed up as stalling. Someone else might call you sentimental, but you knew lingering outside her tidy little home wasn't doing you any good.

She's going to be so disappointed.

Keeping her waiting was cruel, prolonging your departure wouldn't lead to anything.

You've got places to be anyways. So you return to the interior of the home with heavy steps.

It was only going to be worse this time, she really thought you were going to let her take care of you. Really thought she had finally saved a child this time.

You hiccup, tears welling up in your eyes. You were so mean!

The hasty shuffling of someone in the next room sounds out and you give a startled little blubber, wiping at your eyes with your blue sleeves. Her voice calls out to you before she even makes it out of the living room. When you look up you see her there, concern flitting across her motherly features.

"My child...? Are you alright?" You can't quite meet her eyes, instead you give a little sniffle in response and she crouches before you, hugging you to her chest. "What is wrong, did you have a bad dream?"

You don't say anything, clutching tighter at her robes for a moment before you're pulling back from the comfort of the hug, then you take a small meaningful step towards the stairs. She looks confused and your heart clenches painfully in your chest.

You ask Toriel how to exit the ruins.


	7. And Utterly Wrong

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahoy.   
> Here you go.

It's gnarled and blackened, branches bare, reaching high hopelessly towards a nonexistent sun. Perhaps it had once been a powerful sight, yet now one would think death had claimed it long ago if not for the bed of vibrant leaves beneath it. It was as if whenever this old tree grew any leaves they'd fall right off.

You think it's strange to see a tree down here, strange but not impossible it seems.

"Is that a house?" Your brother's young voice echoes out a question from the confines of his metal body and you turn around to face him, but he's not there. With a slight start you realize you had been so distracted by the tree you hadn't noticed your brother had continued forward until he was far past you, his gaze resolutely fixed on the tidy house before him. You hadn't actually paid it much attention when you first entered, nor did you think it was much to look at now either. It didn't stand out from its surroundings, taking on the same shade of purple for the entirety of its bricks. The house was a small structure, or at least it appeared to be small and cozy, you couldn't know how far the building extended without entering. Upon its front were two darkened windows separated by an empty doorway. Beneath these windows, beds of bright red leaves lay dried and listless. A large silver sign hangs high up over the doorway, offering up words you can't quite read.

All in all it's a bit too bland for your tastes.

"Weird..." A short pause breaks his speech before he continues, his tone ambivalent. "...do you think the person who made those puzzles lives here?"

You shrug in response, portraying nonchalance even though you didn't really want to meet someone who spent all of their time underground making puzzles by themselves.

"Maybe the brat is in there?" You offer up with another shrug of your shoulders while approaching the structure.

You make a move to enter the building but Al stops you with a hesitant protest.

"Shouldn't we knock...?"

"What? No. There isn't even a door anyway." Al makes a noise and you imagine his face scrunching up in displeasure. "Come on, Al, think about it, we don't want the brat's kidnapper to know we're coming in."

He seems satisfied by this response but doesn't appear to like the mention of the possible kidnapper scenario. You don't either.

It was only a matter of time, though, you were positive the kid was somewhere in that house. Soon the kid would be back, safe with...well, whoever left those flyers behind. Family? Maybe not, they seemed to be more out of necessity rather than actual concern.

A nagging feeling in the back of your mind back has you mull over your thoughts of the flyers once more, but you push them back and decide it's more important to find the kid first rather worry about what comes later.

You enter the house, your brother following behind you closely into the warmly lit room. The room is quite the contrast when compared to the rest of the area you and your brother had been exploring, no purples or bright greens in sight. A large railed staircase sits towards the middle of the room, taking up the most space. Two doorways stand upon the east and west side of the room. Pale walls and wooden floors seem clean and untouched. The house actually looked _normal_ , not necessarily something you'd imagine belonging in a place like this.

A pleasant scent lingers in the air, it smells as if someone had been baking something recently.

* * *

You don't want to fight her.

So you don't.

* * *

Despite stilling your body and straining your ears, there's nothing to be heard here but the faint crackle of a fire you can just barely pick up. Breathing out a soft huff you glance towards the two doorways at opposite ends of the room, then towards the staircase. Beside you Al steps quietly as he can towards the west room, you feel yourself tense as you listen to his footsteps echo further into the room. Then he's back, you aren't sure how much time had passed but it couldn't have been that long. He shakes his helmet slightly as he steps back into the room. Al then shifts his glowing gaze towards the staircase, then fixes it back on you silently. There's no need to question aloud what he wants you to do. A small nod and you're off, going down step by step. You can already hear Al making his way to the east door, his steps aren't quite as careful as before but, then again, neither are yours.

You run out of stairs pretty quickly. They cut off into a bare corridor that extends much further than you had expected. A moment passes, then a chill makes it's way down your back, you shiver involuntarily. A foreboding feeling curls up in your stomach, settling down as a hard pit and your breath stutters for a moment. With a shake of your head your braid thumps against your left shoulder plaintively, and you're moving faster.

You hear _something._

You speed up, narrowing your eyes to glare at the dim lighting of the hall. A clap of your hands and you've transmuted your blade from your automail. It's not so quiet down here anymore. You're sure of it now, you can hear someone talking. An adult. They sound like they're getting frustrated. The hall takes a turn.

Fire lights the chamber in a golden light.

Your measured steps become a determined sprint.

A bipedal chimera looms over a small scorched figure wearing a striped sweater. The child. They waver in their stance, narrowly avoiding a ball of flame as they suddenly turn around, and take a step in the wrong direction.

The chimera spots you a second too late.

Your blade meets flesh, sinking deep into the body before you. Something sickeningly warm paints your face in a splash, running down your cheeks like discolored tears. Your breath catches in your throat, suddenly you can't breathe, you can't move.

Everything is silent for that single second as if time itself froze with you.

The next second is accompanied by a wet rattling wheeze that strains out from a pair of failing lungs.  
You had been aiming low.  
Shocked hysterical sobs reach your ears but they suddenly seem so distant and muted, like they were buried behind a dense wall you had no hope of breaking.  
You had been trying to force the chimera to _move_ away.  
There's a dull _thump_ , along with it a slight jolt of your arm is jarred forcefully to a stop by the cage your blade is caught in.  
You're ridged, stuck gaping at a rapidly paling face, small hands pawing feebly at your arm. They tug and tug but they can't get a grip, fragile little fingers slipping again and again on the red that just keeps coming and coming.  
This isn't what you wanted.  
This certainly isn't what you had _intended_.  
You're on your knees.  
You don't know when that happened.  
A little floating heart flutters weakly just above your outstretched arm.  
You don't know when that came to be either.  
It's red, just like your arm, and the fingers, and the ground and it's _dimming faster and faster_.

The little hands find purchase on your jacket.

Your pulled closer to the child, they don't seem to mind the metal scraping their ribs and churning up another gush of blood from their chest. Their small shivering red hands release your jacket and move to cup your wet cheeks. Fat tears are wiped from your face carefully. You can feel yourself shaking.

"N-no...I...shit I-I didn't mean t-to...you.. _ohnono_ please. I'm sorry I'm _sorryImsorryImsorry.._ "

A torrent of futile apologies tumble from your lips, none any louder than a whisper into the space between you and the child. The full weight of what you've just done crushes down upon you, you're left heaving sobs of disbelief, your trusty transmuted blade still cradled deep within the child's chest.

They're smiling softly at you, their lips bloodied by a wet cough that shakes their entire frame. Sympathy residing in their actions as they bring a shaking little hand up flat and touch the side of their forehead with the tips of their fingers twice, their next movement is lost, consumed by shudders the little hand drops.

The hovering red heart struggles briefly, fluttering in vain as the child slumps backwards with a sickening wet _squelch_ as your blade is wrenched from their limp body. You're moving forward to catch them before you register a loud abrupt _CRACK_ and the little red heart is shatteri-

It's gnarled and blackened, branches bare, reaching high hopelessly towards a nonexistent sun. Perhaps it had once been a powerful sight, yet now one would think death had claimed it long ago if not for the bed of vibrant leaves beneath it. It was as if whenever this old tree grew any leaves they'd fall right off.

You think it's strange to see a tree down here, strange but not impossible it seems.

"...Ah, is that a house?" Your brother's young voice echoes out a question from the confides of his metal body and you turn around to face him, but he's not there. With a slight start you realize you had been so distracted by the tree you hadn't noticed your brother had continued forward until he was far past you, his gaze resolutely fixed on the tidy house before him. You hadn't actually paid it much attention when you entered, nor did you think it was much to look at now either. It didn't stand out from its surroundings, taking on the same shade of purple for the entirety of its bricks. The house was a small structure, or at least it appeared to be small and cozy, you couldn't know how far the building extended without entering. Upon its front were two darkened windows separated by an empty doorway, beneath these windows beds of bright red leaves lay dried and listless. A large silver sign hangs high up over the doorway, offering up words you can't quite read.

All in all it's a bit too bland for your tastes.

...

There's a odd silence in which you wait for your little brother to continue talking.

"...Uh, should we go in..?" You can't help but feel as if that wasn't quite right, but you nod anyway, ignoring the sense of _wrong_ that seemed to just pile up in your gut.

You make a move to enter the building, but you're stopped by a cold hand grasping at your shoulder, and pulling you back with a odd squeal.

"What th- Al?" He doesn't listen to your unhappy objections.

"Hello there!"

You're about to ask what exactly he thought he was doing when the question suddenly stills and forms a thick lump in your throat.

A small child wearing a striped sweater gazes passively at you from the doorway.


	8. KO By Karma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I forgot I had a Ao3 account eh heh heh...

You feel like you're suffocating.

But you don't know _why_.

You should be relived, but dread hangs over you like a thick miasma, clogging your lungs and crawling down your throat. With it comes a stifling guilt that washes over you in waves. A shudder racks your body. You feel your skin rise with goose bumps. _It doesn't make any sense._ You don't understand.

The child continues to stare impassively, they look very young. _'Fragile'_ your mind supplies the word helpfully as if you already knew that with dead clarity, it makes your stomach churn uncomfortably. But there's nothing accusatory in the way they look at you, just quiet curiosity as if they were observing you from elsewhere. You feel _sick._ A long moment passes, then slowly, the child lifts a hand and proceeds to wave at you with a small smile, careful and soft like one meeting a frightened child hiding behind their mother's skirts.

The turmoil of emotions suddenly stills into a muted lull so quickly you don't have time to process what could have triggered them in the first place. You're left slack jawed in your confusion, numbed to the odd sense of déjà vu creeping up on you.

Al, ignorant of your situation, approaches the child with an air of excitement, he crouches low to meet their gaze, and you think, if he could, he'd be smiling at them.

"Hi Frisk. My name is Alphonse, this is my brother Edward." You can hear the relief in his voice as he introduces you both, and you're idly reminded of that ruined flyer in your pocket. _You_ hadn't remembered their name. "You're safe now, we're going to take you home."

Their brow furrows, and their face scrunches up, like Al had just told them they were going to be munching on bugs, and cleaning up after mules for the rest of their life. They shake their head, scraggly cut bangs obscuring eyes you weren't quite sure were even open. Al shifts his position, clearly not expecting that sort of response, and holds his gauntlets outwards in a pacifying gesture.

"Ah no, we're not going to hurt you, I promise..."

Another shake of brown bangs before he even finishes his sentence, and your little brother trails off uncertainly.

"But...ah.." More confusion, his gauntlets reach out towards them hesitantly. "You...you can't stay here."

A frown, then a nod, they seem to have already come to that conclusion.

"Ok, well lets g-" Al brightens in relief that is quickly dampened as the child shakes their head yet again. Your brother's voice sounds again, this time sounding slightly distressed. "I, uh, don't...understand. Are you scared of me...?"

The child shakes their head quickly and grasps one of Al's metal fingers in their small hand. Through your stupor you find yourself feeling grateful that the child wasn't frightened by your little brother, and that they were willing to quickly refute the thought with their kind actions. Al may have an intimidating appearance, but he obviously wasn't one who enjoyed scaring children. The idea that a kid would rather stay in a place like this, than go with him would make him feel awful.

"Oh..." Once again relieved, but still confused.

The child tugs his hand.

"Ah, no that's the wrong direction." He tells them that, but he is already straightening back up anyway, allowing the child to lead him closer to the purple bricked house. You follow. "The way out is the other way..."

The child waves off Al's words with their free hand, and gives their head another negative shake, as if he were silly to even suggest that.

He doesn't seem to know what to say. In a few moments it doesn't matter anyway, and the _feelings_ comes back.

* * *

You hear a voice, which is, quite odd considering most of the monsters in the ruins dutifully avoid your home like the plague. You do not actually mind company, but the child was currently sleeping, they were very young and needed their rest. Whoever was speaking would have to do so quieter.

A worn book leaves your furred hands carefully as you rise from your armchair, and brush off your robes. Leaving your dainty reading glasses behind, you step into the next room and spot the child in the doorway. _Awake already?_ You smile warmly on reflex, prepared to usher them off to the kitchen for food. Then you realize they aren't alone.

The scene of a such a large form being pulled along by a small child would be much more amusing if you weren't so confused.

They're a tall figure, clad in grey armor, with a single large finger trapped in the child's hand. They make no move to pull back their hand, despite the insistent tugging of the child there's no negative response from the armored one. From the sounds they're making though, it seems they are just as puzzled as you are, albeit, likely for different reasons. They don't notice you nearly as quickly as the child does. But when they do, they give a startled gasp, one that is not quite befitting of their image.

The child stares, shifting their gaze between you and the armored one.

The silence is loud, but you aren't one to keep it that way.

"Hello, my name is Toriel."

* * *

It spoke. _She_ spoke.

Actually just _introduced_ herself, with complete, _coherent,_ words. Like _you_ , like a human. But, that, she _wasn't._ No, what had spoken was a tall goat-like bipedal creature with horns and fur, white fur, wearing a purple robe.

You don't know what to do with this new information.

Neither does your older brother. You find him behind you, gripping at your other arm, so ridged hes shaking, his golden eyes wide, locked on to _her._

 _She,_ Toriel _\- that name rings a bell-_ doesn't see your brother, or perhaps is more focused on you... Either way, she smiles at you, warmly, _kind_ , not what you expected to find here.

"I see you have met the Human," She gives a fond chuckle, and steps forward to ruffle the aforementioned child's hair. They lean into the touch, unfazed by the large padded hand upon their head. "They are quite the handful."

You don't respond, you can't find the words to, but she doesn't seem to mind.

"It is always nice to meet someone new. As it is, not often I see anyone new in the ruins..." Now her eyes shift for a moment. "Speaking of that, how did a guard like you get into the ruins...? Not that I do not want you here, it is just that...well, the ruins are sealed."

A pause, she waits for a response.

You gape, still trying to process the situation. It doesn't show.

She suddenly seems embarrassed.

"Oh my! I did not ask if you could speak! My apologi- Oh dear..." She cuts herself off, and you realize the woman is looking behind you now, her expression a mixture of confusion and concern. "Is your...friend quite alright?"

Your friend?

Oh.

Ed is not 'quite alright', hes, in fact, quite very not alright. His shaking has increased into harsh tremors, his face is utterly pale, and his eyes are flickering rapidly over the room's occupants. You manage an odd keen that ends up portraying your dumbfounded response rather well. _'What's wrong? What's happening?'_ You attempt to still his trembling with the hand the child releases, but his eyes pass over you, as if you weren't even there. The woman approaches with soothing words and a worried frown. His breath quickens. This shouldn't be happening. You're distressed, the child too, they seem uncertain, but move closer, a small hand outstretched, shaking slightly. A pair of golden eyes roll back.

You yelp, catching your elder brother's slumped form to prevent him from hitting the ground. Before you can do anything else, shes already there, gathering your brother into her arms so carefully, with soft murmurings of _'Oh poor child...'._ And truthfully, it hurts a bit, the recognition of such caring actions, but it suddenly makes sense. _Shes...a mother._ You don't try to stop her. It doesn't even occur to you to try to take your brother from her. Instead you follow her, down the hall and into a blue room where she tucks your brother into a cozy bed that seems to swallow him whole.

"Thank you..."

Toriel, stalls in her action of checking Ed's temperature to blink at you in surprise, then her expression softens once more and she smiles again.

"I must say, you sound much younger than I expected." Toriel laughs, her voice quiet. She then lays a furred hand gently back down on Ed's forehead, then continues speaking. "Do either you or your companion here, have names?"

"Oh!" You had forgotten your manners. Not exactly surprising, all things considered, this hadn't gone down how you thought it would. "My name is Alphonse Elric, he's my older brother, Edward."

Her russet eyes study the two of you curiously, Toriel looks like she wants to ask you something. She doesn't.

"It is nice to meet you, Alphonse. Do not worry about your brother, we will have him healed up in no time at all." Another smile. You wish you could smile back.

The child clutches at your fingers.


	9. Have At You

You open your eyes to blue.

For a bleary moment that's all you know. Nothing else pans into focus, you're left there taking in the various shades. Paying attention to anything else suddenly seems like it'd take too much effort. Surrounded by warmth, you're pulled into a comforted lull. You nearly close your eyes to drift back to the welcomed bliss of sleep, yet something nags at you from the back of your mind preventing you from resting.

You hear voices. Hushed and earnest. You can't quite make out what they're saying, much less what the conversation is about. It bothers you. You're not sure why...It feels like you haven't been sure about anything for awhile now. It's getting on your nerves.

Groggily trying to get a grip on your surroundings you note the strangely large size of the bed you had awakened in. Unsurprisingly it was also blue. As far as you were concerned it appeared you were the only thing you had seen thus far that _wasn't_ blue. Then again it was quite possible you had been staring at the ceiling for the majority of the time you had been awake. You shuffle your position in an attempt to force yourself further into lucidness. Skin brushing against soft covers, you blink a pair of golden eyes rapidly, but the world remains frozen in shades of blue.

The floor creaks.

You tense, snapping your eyes shut you make the decision to hastily feign sleep.

Footsteps softly move towards the side of the bed, quiet but not quiet enough, the intruder seems to be making an effort to not wake you. The steps still, fabric shifts carefully. Body ridged like a tightly wound coil, you know where they are. Something prods against your cheek and you spring into action, lashing out a metal fist into the intruder's chest. It cuts through the air without any resistance. Befuddled you're forced to clutch at the edges of the bed to prevent your momentum from flinging you onto the ground. The space where you expected the intruder to occupy is genially empty, almost as if mocking your mistake. Blond hair obscures your vision briefly as you swing your head to locate the unwelcome visitor. There's no one in the room.

"...hm."

You yank your gaze downward, your neck popping in protest of the harsh treatment, you don't notice it.

An innocuous face framed by short hair that's messily ruffled from displaced air quirks a brow at you. Adrenaline still racing throughout your body you shudder out a breath of conflicted relief. The sudden knowledge that you nearly attacked the child sinks its weight deep in your gut, but you plaster on a smile.

"H-hey kid, you okay?"

They stare at you with a soft face void of emotion, you begin to get nervous that you actually _had_ managed to hurt them. Then they give a small nod before inclining their head to you, face remaining hard to read but nevertheless the question is clear.

"Uh, yeah I'm okay," You hesitantly reach out and try to pat their hair down into a lesser mess of fluff. "You...surprised me."

You can't tell if they accept that answer given the fact that their expression seems to default to an unimpressed stare. You stare back for a long moment as if that would garter a response, yet of course the child seems content with a staring contest they'd no doubt win, so you look away, trying to survey the room between glances at the silent child. The room didn't appear to harbor anymore surprise occupants and the child looked to be fine...

"Mission accomplished I guess..." You mutter, raking a hand through your loose hair before idly re-braiding it as the child watches curiously.

You finally found the kid, which was the ultimate goal of all this, so now you had to address the problem of getting _back._ The hole you fell through is a no go, you aren't going to come in contact with whatever that...presence was that was encompassing the entrance if you don't have to. There didn't actually seem to be any other way in or out so far...but you could always keep going forward. That usually worked out? Well, now you just had to switch from looking for the kid to looking for Al and the exit. You picked a great time to faint _. Ha._ Just as soon as you found the kid and their abductor. Who was, ya know, a _huge chimera._ Fantastic. Who knows how that ended up going down.

You pause, expression thoughtful as you asses the situation.

Considering you woke up in an admittedly comfortable bed lacking the bruises you had received over the course of your search, and the kid was found entirely unharmed...

You look up.

The door isn't even locked. A pleasant scent wafts through the open door-way, filtering through with the warm lights and soft voices of a conversation in another room.

What kind of kidnapper was this...?

* * *

You hadn't really had a chance to meet him the first time.

Not that there was a lot of 'meeting' going on right now, but this was much better than getting stabbed. You weren't sure you could really complain about that, nearly all your friends have killed you once or twice. If there was anything to learn from that it'd be 'let someone beat you up then they'll be your friend' which frankly, sounds dumb but it would seem that's just how the underground works. Really you're a lot better at dodging now then when you first fell down, you'd like to think you hadn't died too often but you hadn't been counting. Well...you hadn't dodged his blade all that nicely, then again you _really_ hadn't been expecting that. Why would you?

This hasn't happened before.

That in itself was reall-

"Come on kid, lets get out of here." Edward is already out of Toriel's bed, lacing up his boots before standing up and marching towards the door his gaze set on everything but you.

You frown.

You're not too sure it's a good idea for him to see Toriel. He didn't seem to like her the first time around, which you suppose wasn't really a great time to be introduced to her. But, Toriel is really nice, how could he not like her this time?

Feeling assured you pad towards Edward where he's waiting for you by the door expectantly. He smiles at you again, forced and uncomfortable looking, you don't return the gesture, cocking your head quizzically you wonder why he's trying so hard. You doubt he remembers what happened. Uh well, you don't actually _know_ if he remembers or not but it's unlikely. Maybe? How were you suppose to know, it's not like there's ever been another human down here with you. You don't understand how all this works, not truly.

You nearly stop walking, grabbing a fist full Edward's red jacket within your hand as you shuffle alongside his wary stride.

Ah, you did know _someone_ who could figure this out... He'd be willing to help right? He's one of your best friends!

* * *

"Would you like some pie?"

"A-ah, no uh, I'm fine, thank you."

She blinks at your stuttered response, her expression slightly concerned before she nods and sets the slice of pie on the table. After having talked to Toriel for what could've been several hours you're not surprised by her concern any longer. Really after what she's chatted about you're just rather confused. Toriel tried to talk to you about you and your older brother, but she petered off the topic quickly enough. You mentioned the chimeras and she frowned then told you she'd 'deal with it'. Then she tried to make causal conversation about this...guard job she appears to think you have. You of course opted to tell her you weren't a guardsman rather than end up even more suspicious by trying to fake it. This seemed to make her think you had wanted to be a guard or _something_ because she had nodded sympathetically and told you that you'd make it in one day. She asked if you were from some place called 'Snowdin' to which you replied you live somewhat further away than that. So she nodded knowingly...ah yes...'Hotland'...apparently. Was...she just making up these places names? Thankfully she went on to more understandable topics later, first chatting fondly about Frisk, then about her friend behind what she said was the 'ruins door'. The friend from what you gathered is quite the jokester.

That topic ended up leading to some, rather helpful information... Ergo there's a door that leads to the rest of the underground, and ultimately one of the only ways out of it.

You really don't know what shes been talking about for the majority of your conversation, but shes definitely not the kidnapper you thought she was. She truly cares about Frisk and Frisk appears to return her familial feelings, yet they don't belong here... It's not something that feels quite right, but you're going to have to tell her that Frisk needs to go back to their actual family. How to bring that up though...

"So uhm, Toriel? About Frisk, me and my brother we uh," You start with an awkward cadence not quite ready to separate the two, and yet before you get any further the furred woman raises her head facing you with a puzzled expression and asks a question.

"Pardon me, my friend. Who's Frisk?"

Uhm, weird. You sorta thought she'd know the child's name. Then again she's been referring to Frisk as 'the human' and 'my child' for the entirety of your conversation. You had assumed she just didn't call people by their names... Why hadn't Frisk told her their name? Ah no, you weren't actually quite sure the child could even talk, or... maybe they were shy? No, they had practically dragged you through the door just after a few sentences of being introduced, so shy was out. Perhaps they were just a quiet kid? Well, either way you still had to explain the situation to Toriel. It would be easier to just _show_ her, but your older brother was the one carrying the flyer, which was probably in bad shape by now anyway.

"The child here...Frisk, is a lost child me and my older brother have been looking for." You'd think with such a inhuman face her emotions would be hard to read but her confusion is clear. "We've come to bring them home."

"W-what? But, they...no ones ever came looking for any of them before." Disbelief mars her expression into something almost angry. It ebbs quickly with a flash a grief and she grips at her robes, distressed, the woman pins you with pleading eyes. "You are taking my child from me?"

"N-! We...we have to." Guilt gnaws at you feverishly, her expression is heart-broken. "They...Frisk has a _family._ "

There's an intake of breath and suddenly she can't quite look at you, finding the cooling pie upon the table to advert her gaze to. You can't help feeling as if you just lied to her.

"I know you care about Frisk...But you can't keep them here," You press further, watching as her resolve weakens with the grip on her robes. That guilt squirms inside you. You keep talking. "It's not _right._ Frisk deserves to be with their family..."

"...You are right, my friend...It's selfish of me to keep them confined here...it is...not my place to tell Frisk what to do." The mother releases her robes from the confines of her large hands and her whole posture droops. She straightens with a shuddering resigned sigh that seems to expel whatever uncertainties she had remaining and fixes you with an appraising stare. "Promise me...you will keep them safe, won't you?"

Relief washes over you.

"Of course!" There was no other answer to that.

Toriel's gaze softens and she smiles tiredly.

"Thank you, Alphonse," Her russet eyes flick towards the living room door and her once bitter-sweet smile twitches in amusement. "I will show you three the ruins's exit once Frisk and your older brother are done playing hide-and-seek."

You blink a pair of non-existent eyes owlishly, shifting to face the door-way where your older brother's face is peering at you both with a scowl. You wonder how long he had been there, honestly you didn't think Ed was capable of being that quiet for any measure of time. He moves the rest of his body into view, successfully barring Frisk's path into the room with his leg for a few moments before they decide to casually crawl between his legs. An indignant _'Hey!'_ from Ed follows, and Frisk puffs out their cheeks returning back behind him. Your older brother points at them as one would a disobedient dog and mouths ' _Stay'_. He then turns his narrowed golden eyes on you and Toriel.

"That's it?" He questions distrustfully, his eyes focusing on Toriel now. "You're just going to let us leave? Just like that?"

"Yes." She keeps her response simple, unperturbed by your brother's frustrated anger.

"But, yo-" Edward shoots you a helplessly befuddled look for support. You tilt your helm as if you didn't understand, earning a vexed growl and some hair pulling from your brother. Frisk looks mildly concerned by this. "FINE! Fine, okay, who cares, lets just get going."

"Not in _that_ you're not." Toriel huffs almost jovially and heads for the door way.

"What!? What's wrong with my clothes?" Ed looking too offended to keep his distance sputters angrily.

"Your jacket is much too thin, you'll freeze as soon as you exit the ruins." Toriel chides as she passes him and moves down to the rooms in the hallway.

Ed fumes in the short amount of time it takes for the large hybrid woman to return with a red and white striped sweater. He scowls at the article until Frisk nudges his side. Picking up the sweater he curls his lips distastefully and cranes his neck to the sight of Toriel watching him expectantly.

"Don't be rude brother, put it on." You pull at his jacket shoulder, he glances at you before giving a grunt and pulling the sweater on over his other clothes, jacket included.

He looks...ridiculous.

Pulling his arms into the sweater your brother fumbles about for a bit with his clothes before he manages to get his jacket off his arms without taking off the sweater. With a sharp tug he retrieves his jacket from beneath his new sweater. Then, whilst glaring at everyone in his proximity he slips his red jacket over the sweater with a scoff.

"There you happy?"

"Why yes," Toriel looks to be in better spirits now, she turns to Frisk. "My child, do not forget your pie, and some for your friends, alright?"

Frisk nods their ruffled mop of hair and scurry off into the kitchen, when they return however, they don't appear to be carrying anything.

"Ah, if you all are ready to go..." The woman trails off uncertainly.

"Yes, we are, thank you for your kindness Toriel." You respond in kind, giving a short bow of your head.

She nods, and leads your small group down a flight of stairs into a long dark corridor, remaining disturbingly stoic until you reach a door adorned with the same crest she wore upon her robes. She makes no move to open the door and instead faces Frisk and crouches before them, hugging the child to her chest.

"Forgive me for not considering the life you had before this, my child. Be good, won't you?" She gives them a parting squeeze before standing and addressing you and your brother. "This is as far as I'll be taking you. I believe there is a person in Snowdin willing to aid you in your journey..."

She looks as if shes about to say more but she stops herself and leaves with a farewell to you all, glancing back only once in her remorseful haste. You feel oddly saddened by her absence, and you wonder how Frisk must feel about this. Worse most definitely, so you take their little hand in your own and give it a small swing. Their expression goes from deceptively blank to being graced with a small smile and they help swing your hand a bit further.

In front of you, your brother takes a step forward and opens the door.

* * *

It's dark. Well, uhm, _darker._

In fact it's so dark all you can see is the eerily familiar set up of a doorway and a oddly lit up mound of-

"Well, geez! Look who it is! My new friends, Tin-can, and Midget all buddy-buddy with my ol' pal Frisk!" That saccharine voice coos out in glee and you feel your hackles rising.

Flowey bounces on his stem, sneering viciously.

"Why are you here, come to get your ass handed to you again?" You bark out a laugh, returning the sneer full-force.

"HA! As if! You didn't even scra-" The plant halts suddenly in his reply and leans forward squinting at you. "What the heck are you wearing? You look like a freakin' candy-cane."


End file.
